the8re:Know what? it must be snowing in hell, because I actually do believe an article on Fark has changed my mind about capital punishment. It's just been too many for me to feel comfortable with it.

So, I'm now a life in prison guy. Just keep the cement benches for them to sleep on, just in case.

this is what did it for me too. you can't un-kill somebody. so unless you're 100 percent sure of their guilt, you can't kill them and be morally justified. and considering the corruption in our criminal justice system, there's no way to be 100 percent sure of anyone's guilt.

and, yes, this man has been irrevocably damaged, and he can't get those 30 years back. but he will be compensated, and he will spend his remaining years a free man. if we'd have killed him, there would have been no recourse.

FlashHarry:DrBenway: If that's the case, what's he singling out the newspaper for?

he thinks it's racist to point out that the jury was racist.

That's more along the lines of what I was supposing, but I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. Or else a little more rope, if you like -- it's interesting then to see whether they use it to save themselves or hang themselves.

DrBenway:That's more along the lines of what I was supposing, but I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. Or else a little more rope, if you like -- it's interesting then to see whether they use it to save themselves or hang themselves.

i figured as much. but usually that type doesn't come back for the hanging.

Dimensio:Caddo Parish prosecutors on Thursday filed a motion to vacate the first-degree murder conviction and death sentence of Glenn Ford because of undisclosed evidence indicating he was neither present nor a participant of the robbery and murder of 56-year-old jeweler and watchmaker Isadore Rozeman on Nov. 5, 1983.

I'd like to see a complete overhaul of our judicial system. First, jurors who have at least a Bachelor's Degree in Criminal Justice/Law, and that would be their full-time job: jurist. They could ask questions as well.

Next, the lawyers involved would be presented with all available evidence, and only then would they be assigned to Prosecution or Defense. Having to know the case well enough to argue either side would weed out the bad lawyers very quickly, because I'd also have something akin to a "3 strikes" law for them: lose 3 cases and you're barred from criminal trials.

Next, scrap all mandatory sentencing laws and for-profit prisons. They only encourage misconduct to keep the prisons full and profitable.

I'd require 3 judges, a Tribunal, to render sentencing. That way someone not paying attention (the dude using the penis pump during a trial comes to mind), someone taking bribes, or some racist asshat could be voted down by the 2 saner/more honest judges on the bench. There would be a variation of the "3-strikes" rule for them as well: too many minority decisions and you're done as a judge.

Finally, a Prosecutor or cop(s) who withheld crucial evidence would have to serve the same amount of time as the person(s) they put away. I wonder how many vindicated ex-cons would opt for this over some financial buy-off?

indy_kid:Dimensio: Caddo Parish prosecutors on Thursday filed a motion to vacate the first-degree murder conviction and death sentence of Glenn Ford because of undisclosed evidence indicating he was neither present nor a participant of the robbery and murder of 56-year-old jeweler and watchmaker Isadore Rozeman on Nov. 5, 1983.

I'd like to see a complete overhaul of our judicial system. First, jurors who have at least a Bachelor's Degree in Criminal Justice/Law, and that would be their full-time job: jurist. They could ask questions as well.

Next, the lawyers involved would be presented with all available evidence, and only then would they be assigned to Prosecution or Defense. Having to know the case well enough to argue either side would weed out the bad lawyers very quickly, because I'd also have something akin to a "3 strikes" law for them: lose 3 cases and you're barred from criminal trials.

Next, scrap all mandatory sentencing laws and for-profit prisons. They only encourage misconduct to keep the prisons full and profitable.

I'd require 3 judges, a Tribunal, to render sentencing. That way someone not paying attention (the dude using the penis pump during a trial comes to mind), someone taking bribes, or some racist asshat could be voted down by the 2 saner/more honest judges on the bench. There would be a variation of the "3-strikes" rule for them as well: too many minority decisions and you're done as a judge.

Finally, a Prosecutor or cop(s) who withheld crucial evidence would have to serve the same amount of time as the person(s) they put away. I wonder how many vindicated ex-cons would opt for this over some financial buy-off?

Japan already has "professional jurors" along with lay jurors, a position I think works well.

As to the rest of your points, dissents by judges, called "minority opinions" by you, are pretty important to the proper functioning of law. To dis incentivize dissent is to basically hand the judgeship over to whatever political/public policy ideology is trending.

TLDR version: punishing judges for dissents would have quite possibly delayed things like the Civil Rights Movement even further.

IronJelly:DarkSoulNoHope: But our justice system needs the death penalty, as a deterrent to show people who don't commit crimes that they shouldn't commit crimes, otherwise this will happen to you... oh.

Oy Vey! Not this Shvit again.

Listen, the punishment for a crime is supposed to be so horrible that it deters the criminals. Death isn't what is merited here. Torture the bastard until he confesses to something. Jesus Christ, declaring that a punishment should fit the crime and decrying cruel and unusual punishment was part of the problem.

I promise, even small crimes would stop if the penalty for the few poor schmucks who get caught was severe enough. No turn signal? You get a finger cut off. Is that all four, I guess your thumb is next, good luck driving anymore. I promise just the thought of that penalty, and knowing from the news that it happened to even one person would straighten out the others who don't use it. Same with murder, but you have to go beyond killing the killer back if you want to scare them out of it. America no longer has the balls to properly torture someone though.

indy_kid:Dimensio: Caddo Parish prosecutors on Thursday filed a motion to vacate the first-degree murder conviction and death sentence of Glenn Ford because of undisclosed evidence indicating he was neither present nor a participant of the robbery and murder of 56-year-old jeweler and watchmaker Isadore Rozeman on Nov. 5, 1983.

I'd like to see a complete overhaul of our judicial system. First, jurors who have at least a Bachelor's Degree in Criminal Justice/Law, and that would be their full-time job: jurist. They could ask questions as well.

Interesting. Comparable to a grand jury, which sometimes has the same members on it for years.

Next, the lawyers involved would be presented with all available evidence, and only then would they be assigned to Prosecution or Defense. Having to know the case well enough to argue either side would weed out the bad lawyers very quickly, because I'd also have something akin to a "3 strikes" law for them: lose 3 cases and you're barred from criminal trials.

Also interesting, at least the "you don't know which side you're going to argue." Not a fan of the "3 strikes and you're out", though...you could easily get three dogs of a case in a row, if you're going by luck of the draw.

Next, scrap all mandatory sentencing laws and for-profit prisons. They only encourage misconduct to keep the prisons full and profitable.

Concur. You might want to keep SOME mandatory minimums, like 20 years for murder, to avoid the odd judge giving people ten days for whacking someone.

I'd require 3 judges, a Tribunal, to render sentencing. That way someone not paying attention (the dude using the penis pump during a trial comes to mind), someone taking bribes, or some racist asshat could be voted down by the 2 saner/more honest judges on the bench. There would be a variation of the "3-strikes" rule for them as well: too many minority decisions and you're done as a judge.

Finally, a Prosecutor or cop(s) who withheld crucial evidence would have to serve the same amount of time as the person(s) they put away. I wonder how many vindicated ex-cons would opt for this over some financial buy-off?

Concur, so long as they DELIBERATELY withheld it. Simple failure to find something shouldn't put you in jail...nobody is perfect, and we shouldn't hold cops, at least, to an unreasonable standard. Your earlier "you don't know which side you'll argue" situation takes care of the prosecutors, imho.

Cataholic:FlashHarry: DrBenway: If that's the case, what's he singling out the newspaper for?

he thinks it's racist to point out that the jury was racist.

Almost as racist as assuming white people on a jury are racist just because they are white.

No, he's pointing out that the white people on a Shreveport, LA jury in 1984 were likely to be somewhat racist.

Stepping back even farther, he's insinuating that the system that managed to seat an all-white jury in 1984 for the murder trial of a black guy, in a city with a population that was over 1/3 black at the time... might be a little more racist than we're giving it credit for.

Magorn:the8re: Know what? it must be snowing in hell, because I actually do believe an article on Fark has changed my mind about capital punishment. It's just been too many for me to feel comfortable with it.

So, I'm now a life in prison guy. Just keep the cement benches for them to sleep on, just in case.

I was in Illinois, doing criminal defense work (in a law school clinic) when the death penalty moratorium was imposed. There were two things that triggered it: 1) a series of Chicago Tribune articles showing that in the past two decades Illinois had exonerated exactly as many death row inmates as they had executed- 13 each, 2) an anti-death penalty group staged a "march of the exonerated" having the men freed from death row walk in relay carrying a petition to end the death penalty from Chicago to Springfield. The man they chose for the last leg who delivered the petition into Gov. Ryan's hands was a man who had been literally hours away from execution when the evidence that exonerated him came to light. Someone standing next to Ryan at the time told me he was visibly shaken on meeting the man and kept muttering "we measured him for his coffin"

Even for a corrupt dirtbag like Ryan, that was too much, and the Death Penalty effectively ended in Illinois that day.

My own experience defending death row inmates also converted me from mildly in favor to vehemently opposed. Even if you did not share my moral qualms about the state intentionally ending a human life, if you experience first hand, I can not imagine you could ever come away with any impression other than that the criminal justice system is FAR to broken to ever allow the kind of certainty and fairness the Death penalty demands

Gonz:Cataholic: FlashHarry: DrBenway: If that's the case, what's he singling out the newspaper for?

he thinks it's racist to point out that the jury was racist.

Almost as racist as assuming white people on a jury are racist just because they are white.

No, he's pointing out that the white people on a Shreveport, LA jury in 1984 were likely to be somewhat racist.

Stepping back even farther, he's insinuating that the system that managed to seat an all-white jury in 1984 for the murder trial of a black guy, in a city with a population that was over 1/3 black at the time... might be a little more racist than we're giving it credit for.

He pulled and highlighted the quote regarding the respective races of the accused and the jury and then remarked, "And there we go. Stay liberal, Shreveport [T]imes." How does that jibe with your interpretation? Apparently, there is an issue with the newspaper's reportage.

PunGent:to avoid the odd judge giving people ten days for whacking someone.

Or there could just be some way to withdraw judges who make bad judgements, while still allowing good judges to act in a way that best fits the circumstances of the case (i.e. without mandatory minimums).

FormlessOne:...and this is, once again, why I support our governor's suspension of the death penalty. Until we can be sure, absolutely sure, that a person deserves to die for the crime he or she committed, then no one should die. I'd rather put hundreds of heinous scumbags behind bars for life without parole than kill 1 innocent person.

Do you own a time machine?

I only ask because your argument seems to be of the "we can't give an innocent executed person back his life, therefore we should do away with the death penalty altogether" type. The flaw is obvious: in the absence of a time machine, it is impossible to 'give back' the decades of time spent in prison by an innocent person either. So, since we can't 'make them whole' either way, that argument is invalid. (Either that, or you logically must oppose ANY punishment, simply because the person being punished might, maybe, possibly be found innocent later, and you can never un-do what was done to them.)

Now, there are other arguments- for instance, it could be argued that "just" being in prison is better than being dead. (Then why do people in prison sometimes kill themselves? Why have 'suicide watch' for prisoners?)

On the other hand, it's a lot cheaper to put a bullet between someones eyes than it is to keep them fed, housed, and guarded for the rest of their life, just on the off chance they might later be found innocent.

The argument could be made that, if you never put anyone to death, then you never put an innocent person to death. (And I would again point out that this argument applies to ANY punishment.) This, of course, ignores the fact that the cops seem pretty trigger-happy as it is now- if they know that a murderer isn't going to be put to death, but instead fed, clothed, housed, educated, given healthcare, guarded, etc, what might they do? Claim the murder 'struggled' and they simply 'had' to shoot him dead?

On the other hand, a few innocent people being killed is a tragedy to be sure... but it can be used to effect reform. What if we held prosecutors (and police, etc) liable for any such innocent person's death? "Hey, Mr Prosecutor- you didn't do your job right, and an innocent person was killed because of you! We're putting you on trial for murder!" How many cases like that will it take before prosecutors start crossing all their T's and dotting all their I's? And when they do that, the chance if innocent people being convicted drops to (almost) zero. Is it worth a few lives now to make the System better and stop dozens, hundreds, even thousands of lives in the future? It's a classic Trolly Problem.

fredklein:FlashHarry: you can't un-kill somebody. so unless you're 100 percent sure of their guilt, you can't kill them and be morally justified.

You can't give them back the decades they spent in prison, either. Sure, you can let them out, but you can't give them back those years.

So, whenever it happens, setting them free with a financial settlement and returning them to what's left of their families is really only just the slightest bit better than, say, digging up their corpse and propping it up in a chair, right? And besides, we've got omelettes to make. An enlightened perspective to be sure.

Question for all the anti-death penalty types...what should we do about, for instance, Aryan Brotherhood inmates who are already sentenced to life in prison and commit all sorts of crimes in prison because they know they will never get the death penalty, and they're already in for life?

Oakenhelm:Question for all the anti-death penalty types...what should we do about, for instance, Aryan Brotherhood inmates who are already sentenced to life in prison and commit all sorts of crimes in prison because they know they will never get the death penalty, and they're already in for life?

profplump:PunGent: to avoid the odd judge giving people ten days for whacking someone.

Or there could just be some way to withdraw judges who make bad judgements, while still allowing good judges to act in a way that best fits the circumstances of the case (i.e. without mandatory minimums).

True. It's just that while I think mandatory minimums have been seriously abused for things like drug possession...I don't really have a problem with, say, a 20 year minimum for premeditated murder.

I'm also OK with life without parole, particularly as opposed to the death penalty. As a practical matter, there's a huge constituency out there that favors the death penalty...and you've got to throw them a bone if you want any meaningful reform at all, I think.

DrBenway:fredklein: FlashHarry: you can't un-kill somebody. so unless you're 100 percent sure of their guilt, you can't kill them and be morally justified.

You can't give them back the decades they spent in prison, either. Sure, you can let them out, but you can't give them back those years.

So, whenever it happens, setting them free with a financial settlement and returning them to what's left of their families is really only just the slightest bit better than, say, digging up their corpse and propping it up in a chair, right? And besides, we've got omelettes to make. An enlightened perspective to be sure.

It may be "better" in the same way that dying in a car accident is "better" than dying of cancer.

But in the end, you're still dead.

And in the end, if you are kept in prison for decades, you've still lost something that can never be returned, even if they pay you a Billion dollars.

And, again, the whole 'we can fix it by releasing them later' thing (where the 'fix' doesn't actually fix the real issue) means people are more tolerant of the original problem- the fact that an innocent person was sent to prison to begin with.

ViralMonkey:Oakenhelm: Question for all the anti-death penalty types...what should we do about, for instance, Aryan Brotherhood inmates who are already sentenced to life in prison and commit all sorts of crimes in prison because they know they will never get the death penalty, and they're already in for life?

Solitary

They tried that. They still find ways to give orders/get stuff they should not have. And unfortunately you cannot leave people in solitary forever.

DrBenway:twiztedjustin: Ford, a black man, was convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white Caddo jury in the fall of 1984.

And there we go. Stay liberal, Shreveport times.

Sorry to trouble you but might you be a bit more concrete as to the point you're wanting to make?

This is my local paper. They have a strong leaning, always have, always will. They will leave out facts, or in this case highlight what they *believe* might be pertinent. No one has suggested this man was railroaded because of his color, but the Shreveport Times went out of their way to point this tidbit out.

Their workforce is, how you say, diverse. And it shows. I shouldn't be able to tell what race or political leanings you have by reading your article. Sure, it is the same everywhere, but when it is my paper, and it is so constant and so wrong, I find the only times I ever read it is when I'm linked to it on a national/world website, I just hate there spin.

twiztedjustin:DrBenway: twiztedjustin: Ford, a black man, was convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white Caddo jury in the fall of 1984.

And there we go. Stay liberal, Shreveport times.

Sorry to trouble you but might you be a bit more concrete as to the point you're wanting to make?

This is my local paper. They have a strong leaning, always have, always will. They will leave out facts, or in this case highlight what they *believe* might be pertinent. No one has suggested this man was railroaded because of his color, but the Shreveport Times went out of their way to point this tidbit out.

Their workforce is, how you say, diverse. And it shows. I shouldn't be able to tell what race or political leanings you have by reading your article. Sure, it is the same everywhere, but when it is my paper, and it is so constant and so wrong, I find the only times I ever read it is when I'm linked to it on a national/world website, I just hate there spin.